matty
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Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Dec 16, 2015 6:48:30 GMT -5
Seem to have got quite a few OMs over the years, 3 chrome OM10s, one black OM10 Quartz (data back model), couple of OM20s and pride of my Olympus collection a OM1n. Most I paid was £27 for the OM1n, the rest were under a tenner. I think prices on evil bay are going up because of demand for the lenses not the camera, it is becoming all too common a sight at flea markets to see slrs with no lenses, the lenses have been sold on evil bay and the body is going to the carboot or into the bin. So I go along and rescue the bodies and match them up with lenses from the collection. My Spotty F is currently displayed with a Meyer Optik Domiplan because I don't have any spare Takumars. Matty
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matty
Lifetime Member
Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Dec 16, 2015 6:26:20 GMT -5
Thought I better tidy up the dining room a bit before Christmas. As this doubles up as my camera room/model making/mini studio area it is a messy and full of treasures. So far I've found an Oly Trip and an Ensign Selfix 620 I didn't realise I had and found and fixed a Zeiss 50mm lens with sticky aperture blades that had been stowed at the back of a shelf. I might actually get round to doing some tidying now. Matty
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matty
Lifetime Member
Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Dec 16, 2015 6:10:27 GMT -5
My local Poundland still had a box of Agfa 35mm film, might go and buy the box and put it in the freezer while they still have it. Matty
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matty
Lifetime Member
Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Nov 2, 2015 6:42:18 GMT -5
I looked up about conversions, Bald Mountain is still advertising conversion to 120, the downside is that you lose the use of the frame counter and the cost (nearly $400, £300ish.) I paid £7 for the 620 so it will take quite a few films to make the cost of the conversion worthwhile for me so I will give that a miss. Matty
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matty
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Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Oct 24, 2015 15:06:11 GMT -5
Mickey, please don't be so hard on the use of the word "vintage", from an advertising point of view it is brilliant. Vintage means that Hipsters will pay double what something is worth, much like "Lomography." Matty p.s. after many years of studiously not being in any identifiable style group my daughter took great delight in calling me a Hipster today because I was using my Voigtlander Vito B to take some pictures whilst she snapped away with her D3100. How has it come to pass that just being a bit old fashioned is now fashionable.
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matty
Lifetime Member
Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Oct 22, 2015 15:08:12 GMT -5
Cor, so many Prakticas, so little time. I thought I was doing well with about ten (haven't had a chance to catch up with cataloging the collection recently.) Just wondering how much did a Praktica go for in Australia in the 80's. In the UK a MTL 5 was about £65 (one pound is about 2 dollars 13 at the moment.) I remember this as I was saving up for my first proper camera in the early 80's, the choice was between an Oly Trip for roughly £40, a Zenit EM for £35, Zenit TTL for £55 or the Praktica. Eventually went for the TTL as I couldn't bear waiting any longer. In terms of weekly wage equivalent £55 was about a week and a half's wage for my first job, Archaeological Excavator for Liverpool University/Peel Castle Trust in 1984. Anyway, I've now got the original wish list complete, Oly Trip (for a fiver), Zenit EM (£15), TTL (£10) and the MTL 5(part of a job lot for £20), only had to wait 30 years.
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matty
Lifetime Member
Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Oct 22, 2015 14:45:00 GMT -5
Been having a bit of a rough time of late, new job (not rough, good fun but hard work), car crash (rear ended by an idiot on his mobile phone, torn muscles in my right shoulder and my beloved Fiat Doblo written off,) missus poorly (sciatica) and to top it all my poor Dad passed away. So I haven't had much chance to post recently and haven't had much luck on the collecting front until a couple of weeks ago when I found this little beauty at the local carboot. A work of art in cast and machined metal: Kodak Medallist; came with the lens cap and original case. The camera is pretty clean, the only downside is a crack in the view finder front lens, a little distracting but doesn't affect picture taking. The lens is clean, the rangefinder seems accurate, the shutter fires properly and the aperture opens and closes cleanly; so I've got some 620 film from Retro Photo Supplies and have loaded it up. As it only gets 8 exposures to the film (6x9 negative size!) I'm taking it slowly to get the right shots, took some beach panoramas and hope to get down to Menai Bridge to get some shots of the suspension bridge in the next couple of days. As far as I can find out from the internet the lens number indicates that the camera was made in 1944 and the lens barrel is anodised black. I know that a lot of Medallists were used by the US Navy but can't find any naval markings on this one, one site I read suggested that black barreled Medallists were Navy issue but another site said the opposite. I would be interested to hear other people's thoughts on this.
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matty
Lifetime Member
Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Oct 22, 2015 14:17:26 GMT -5
I'm still here. Various family disasters, car crashes and a new job just meant that I haven't had much chance to post recently. Still hunting the local carboot sales and junk shops. Had some very dry spots in collecting but have recently started to get my mojo back. Got something nice to post about recently so will do that this evening. Regards Matty
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matty
Lifetime Member
Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Nov 30, 2014 7:23:09 GMT -5
I've had a very quiet time on the collecting front recently, the local boot sale seems to only have cameras that I already have good examples of or very overpriced bits and pieces. So I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I had chance to pop in to a junk shop I hadn't had been to for a while (I was on the way back to my base having had to help another unit with an audit.) There was a rather tatty Prinz bag leant against the wall with £20 marked on it. Inside was a Olympus OM10 Quartz, a little rubbed but still in working order, with a nice clean Zuiko 50mm 1.8 lens and the manual adaptor. There was, also, an after market 70/200 zoom (a bit ropey so will go in the spares bin.) As I haven't got the Quartz model I haggled and agreed a price of £15, then the shop owner ducked into the back and came out with a long case, "this goes with it" he said and pulled out a nice clean Optomax 500mm f8 lens, T mount with a Pentax K mount adaptor. Oh ta very much I said, paid my money and walked out the shop a very happy boy. I'll probably replace the K mount with a spare M42 adaptor (I tend to use my M42 cameras more than my K mount ones and it makes it a bit easier swopping over to my EOS adaptor for the 30D.) Matty
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matty
Lifetime Member
Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Oct 12, 2014 13:57:03 GMT -5
Hello Fazalali, Alpas are a bit hard to find. I did find a Model 6c in a Junk Shop a few months back. It was well worn and I couldn't really afford to get it restored properly so I sold it on (at a good profit.) They are beautifully made and I sort of regret selling mine but the gent who bought it was using it to restore another Alpa so it went to good use. I don't think I'll ever find another one at the same price but you never know, I keep touring my local junk shops and antiques shops in hope. Good luck in your search. Regards Matty
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matty
Lifetime Member
Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Oct 12, 2014 13:56:52 GMT -5
Hello Fazalali, Alpas are a bit hard to find. I did find a Model 6c in a Junk Shop a few months back. It was well worn and I couldn't really afford to get it restored properly so I sold it on (at a good profit.) They are beautifully made and I sort of regret selling mine but the gent who bought it was using it to restore another Alpa so it went to good use. I don't think I'll ever find another one at the same price but you never know, I keep touring my local junk shops and antiques shops in hope. Good luck in your search. Regards Matty
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matty
Lifetime Member
Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Oct 6, 2014 2:03:12 GMT -5
Cor, lucky boy. The last Pentax screw mount camera I saw in a charity shop was a Spotmatic that they wanted £160 (€200) for and that wasn't in anyway as good condition, I am very very jealous. Matty
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matty
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Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Sept 29, 2014 5:02:05 GMT -5
Pretty good shots considering the weather. I would have loved to see the 2 Lancs together but haven't had chance, maybe when they get Just Jane flying again there will be a chance to see 3 together. I've missed the Red Arrows this year, they usually come to RAF Valley for training about March/April time but I didn't see them this year. They were up for the Valley families day at the end of July but I was laid up with a vomiting bug so missed them then, even though we have a good view of Valley out of our bedroom window. To bad work gets in the way of plane spotting, I haven't had a chance to sit at the end of the runway for a while and there seems to have been a lot of activity recently (exercises I presume.) Glimpsed what appeared to be a MIL helicopter a couple of weeks ago when I was on my way into work.
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matty
Lifetime Member
Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Sept 24, 2014 8:28:48 GMT -5
Having big porky fingers I do prefer using DSLR, having a proper viewfinder and little shutter lag are extra benefits. Size is a problem though, and you can guarantee you have the wrong lens on for the quick shot you want to take. So I also use a bridge Fuji S2980 which I chose specifically for the EVF, sunny days are no problem and I've got a reasonable zoom ready to use. The other thing to try is have a big enough vehicle to carry all the bits you want to have to hand, my Fiat Doblo's boot(trunk)has the dog's travel crate in it and enough space for camera bags and luggage as well, well it is basically a minivan with seats in it. The only trouble I have with it is that BMW and Audi drivers don't like being overtaken by me, for some reason the sight of a red van catching up with them in the rear view mirror makes them speed up. Matty
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matty
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Posts: 126
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Post by matty on Aug 14, 2014 4:52:19 GMT -5
I'm not sure if there is a real alternative to ebay at the moment. I wish there was but for selling in terms of "footfall" there isn't an alternative as big and footfall is the key to getting good prices. Also, you have a greater access to "trend" markets where price is less of a barrier to sales.
Selling through a local auction house won't give as a good a return, a specialist saleroom will give you a better price but you will have to pay a bigger commission. I do sometimes swap or sell with local collectors but in a rural area there aren't a great many of us and many of us peruse the same outlets and markets anyway. I do think ebay are sneaky about fees, charging a fee on your P+P cost as well as your selling cost is a bit much, especially as even the taxman allows me to write P+P off against tax. I would prefer to use a smaller market place that wasn't so obsessed with profit, for the same reason I use Firefox rather than Internet Explorer, some people have too much money already and the bigger the corporation the less time they have for the small customer.
I'm not a big seller on ebay, I am dabbling my toes in the water because as my collection grows I'm starting to get duplicate bits and pieces so I'm starting to keep the better examples and sell off the spares. This gives me a return on my collecting, for example I found a Praktica Nova PL 1 in a bag with an assortment of lenses, Zeiss Jena, Pentacon 135 and 50mm and a Helios 2/58, I've got good examples of these so the Nova has gone on the display shelf, the lenses to ebay and the profit will probably go on something else during my next shopping trip. The Alpa I sold got me a new cambelt on the car and a FED1 so I'm happy with my selling at the moment.
With ebay though I haven't had problems with buyers (yet, touch wood) but I am trying to be scrupiously honest with my descriptions and I am going overboard on the packing to try and avoid any problems.
As to getting more cameras one possible route is Freegle or Freecycle, these are local groups that contact by email allowing people to move on unwanted bits and pieces and allowing things to be reused and avoiding things going to landfill. I am a member of the two local groups and I've had a couple of bits and pieces so they are worth checking out.
Regards Matty
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